


Proof of Concept

by Calais_Reno



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angry John, Angst, Don’t copy to another site, Falling In Love, Flashbacks, Happy Ending, Love, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post-Reichenbach, Psychology, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-15 06:46:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19607647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calais_Reno/pseuds/Calais_Reno
Summary: Sherlock returns. John is angry. Sherlock does research. How do you prove that you love someone?Or: The Inner Monologue of a Part-Time Sociopath





	1. Love, Hypothetically

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Prueba de Concepto](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21764620) by [Phanherb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phanherb/pseuds/Phanherb)



John is angry.

“What do you even know about me, Sherlock?” He glares at me, his arms folded across his chest.

I could list off the things I’d deduced about him — his alcoholic sister, his abusive father, his passive mother, his psychosomatic limp, his hand tremor…. But he’s right. I don’t really know John Watson. That much has become painfully obvious.

I heard him at my grave, begging me for one more miracle. _Don’t be dead._ And I returned, confident that I would answer his prayers. We would hug and laugh, and he would call me a _crazy git_ or a _mad wanker,_ and it would seem as if I’d never been gone at all.

I never imagined _this_.

Now, I’m thinking about all the times he’s lost his temper with me. Not once did I see the fuse lit, burning down — until the explosion. Coming from me, a man with superior skills of deduction, this is quite a humbling admission.

John Watson never fails to surprise me.

I can tell myself he’s moody, that it’s the PTSD, that he has anger issues (abusive father, passive mother, manipulative sister). All of that may be true, but by now, I certainly should have learned something from all those explosions. I should have expected him to be at least irritated that I’d faked my death and waited two years to tell him.

“You don’t get it,” he says. He’s smiling, that tight, dangerous smile that appears before he hits someone. I step back.

“John—” I try.

“I _loved_ you.” His voice breaks when he says this. I allow the guilt to set in. I deserve his anger. Clearly, I have miscalculated. I let him have his say. “I thought you loved me, but you let me think you were dead! You let me grieve for almost two years— don’t you understand what that did to me?”

My heart sinks as I take in his words. Past tense: _loved._ As in: _I used to love you before you lied to me and broke my heart._

I try again. “I do love you.” I sound apologetic, which might be the tone I ought to aim for. “I did it for you, to keep you safe.”

He looks away, covers his face with his hands, weeping. _Should I hug him?_ That seems like a normal response to weeping. No, I decide. He’s still thinking about punching me. And one thing I do know about John Watson is that he can hit hard. And I won’t see it coming.

This conversation began in the restaurant. We’re now standing on the sidewalk in front. John is weeping, people are staring, and I am waiting for him to take a swing at me.If I back up any further, I’ll be in the street.

“I can’t talk to you right now,” he says, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He gives me another glare. Abruptly, he turns and walks down the street, ignoring cabs, leaving his date standing here, dumbfounded.

She stares after him, then turns back to me, a puzzled frown gathering on her face. I deduce that she is a nurse, an only child, speaks several languages, is a bit short-sighted, reads the Guardian (Liberal Democrat), bakes her own bread, loves cats, is both clever and romantic, has an appendix scar and a secret tattoo, and wears a size 12. And she’s a liar.

None of this matters. She has no claim on John Watson.

She is trying to deduce me as well. “You’re…?”

“I’m his husband.” Perhaps this doesn’t matter, either.

It was not an ideal way for me to announce my return, to crash his date with a random woman he met at work, even if he isn’t planning to see her again. Especially not ideal for me to barge in, using an improvised disguise to pretend I’m the waiter, making fun of his moustache.

But it was an awkward situation. John would never cheat on me— knowingly. Obviously he was trying to move on, and it was a shock for him to realise that he was, in fact, cheating on me. _Not dead_.

Perhaps it would have been better simply to wait at the flat for him to come home from his shift at the surgery. In the privacy of our home, his reaction might have been less violent. I wouldn’t have worn a fake moustache. He might have been surprised. I might have made a joke about his moustache (because it truly is awful). He might have been annoyed. But then he would become a bit teary and his voice would shake a little as he said, _I’ve missed you so much…_ and then, finally, we could have fallen into one another’s arms without reserve (laughing and crying) and then into bed (kissing and groping one another and having blinding, brilliant sex).

That should have been my plan. I have miscalculated. I thought he wanted me back and would be happy to see me alive, even with a fake moustache. That hasn’t happened, obviously. And I need to think about why that is.

I study the flat, trying to deduce what happened while I was gone. Mycroft, who was supposed to keep a _weather eye_ on him, has missed something important.

Well, he did warn me. _He’s got on with his life. It is just possible that you won’t be welcome._

 _What life? I’ve been away._ And I’m his husband. I have the paperwork to prove it.

Much of his clothing is still here, in the flat, as well as many of his possessions. John has never been one to accumulate much. His worldly possessions consist mainly of unstylish clothing and a few paperback spy novels. And a box containing things from his army days. He keeps these neatly organised; the box is still on the shelf in our bedroom.

I’m the pack rat, the one who collects books and sketches and equipment and body parts. My paraphernalia overflows my designated areas (desk, bookshelf), taking up nearly every horizontal space except the bed, which he always insisted on being free of chemicals and dead bits.

_Is he living here?_

I take a look around the sitting room, peer into the kitchen. The flat has not changed much in the two years I’ve been gone, and that’s puzzling. He used to complain about my mess all the time, and here it is, preserved like a museum of chaos. I wonder what that means. Perhaps it was inconsiderate of me to jump to my death without first tidying up the flat.

As I think about it, clean flat or no, there may not be a way to fake your death and expect a smooth return to life as usual.

We don’t see one another for two weeks. In the meantime, I begin looking for cases and trying to clean up the flat a bit, in case he comes back. I see evidence that he’s been here twice, both times while I was out, to pick up his parka, some gloves, and miscellaneous jumpers. The weather’s getting colder, so that makes sense. He’s also looked at the mail, leaving the bills for me. If he is watching the flat closely enough to see me go out, I tell myself, he hasn’t deleted me from whatever passes for a Mind Palace in that funny little brain of his. It’s odd, I think, that a neat freak like John Watson would have a brain like a junk drawer or a cluttered attic, while I, content to live amid clutter, keep my mind as orderly as my sock drawer. Curious.

I text him a few times ( _I miss you; I’m sorry; I bought milk; please come back; I love you_ ), but no reply. I don’t recall him staying this angry for so long. Usually a couple laps around the park will reset his temper. He’ll come back home, trudge up the stairs, say he’s sorry he blew up, _but…_ And then he will spell out to me why he was angry and what I must never do again, etc. I have learned to listen to his explanations, accept his apologies, and make vague promises of reform. Works every time.

Now I’m worried. This time, a walk around the park is apparently not enough.

Making John angry is something that comes easily to me. I’m not saying I do it on purpose. I really don’t enjoy disappointing him. He calls me an idiot, and in some respects, he’s right. By now, I should have cracked the mystery of John Watson. I should anticipate his explosions and understand his explanations of the _not good_ things that drive him to explode. But here I am, still surprised that we’ve bypassed _Severe_ and are at _Critical Threat Level._

His temper notwithstanding, he is perfect. I am _not_ perfect, not at all, and he knows this. He has lived with me long enough to witness all the ways in which I am less than perfect. He married me, knowing what I am. God knows I’ve been rude to him, demeaned his intelligence on more than one occasion, turned the flat into a bio-hazard area, and left gruesome surprises in the fridge. Perhaps my mistake was in thinking that John Watson, perfect and normal and good, could really love Sherlock Holmes, imperfect, abnormal, and impossible.

This hypothesis sends me spiralling into a despair that not even cocaine could remedy — if I were to try that. Not that I would. I no longer use cocaine, and have John to thank for that. Once he and I became a couple, he insisted that there be no more drugs. He couldn’t be in a relationship with someone who was self-destructive, he said. The irony of this does not escape me. I gave up a self-destructive habit, and then jumped to my (supposed) death from the roof of a four story building, the ultimate destruction of self. (Not what John expected when he complained about my drug habits.)

I wait, hoping that eventually he’ll come around when I’m home. I try leaving by the front door, sneaking in the back way, hoping he’ll think I’m still out and I can get between him and the door before he has a chance to escape. What would I say, though? Nothing comes to mind.

John does not come around. I attempt to resume my life. A rather large piece is missing. I wander, in a daze, wondering what’s wrong. Then I remember: _John is not here_. I forget how to think.

There are no cases; Lestrade is avoiding me. I am bouncing off the walls with boredom.

Just when I’m contemplating drugs (seems almost harmless when compared with my dramatic _fall_ ), he shows up again. It’s evening, later than if he’d come straight from work. I hear his feet climbing the stairs, deduce his mood from the pace and the weight of his footsteps.

“You’ve been at the pub with Lestrade.”

He nods, gives up a half smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “What gave me away?”

John doesn’t say _amazing_ or _fantastic_ or any of the other things he used to say. My deduction was none of those things, and we both know it. He’s just taking the piss, I decide, but still, I can’t help myself. “You’ve been off work since six. Alcohol on your breath, but you’re not very intoxicated. Lestrade knows about your sister, never lets you have more than a pint, two at most.”

I don’t mention the conversation I’d had with Lestrade today. _When are you going to apologise to John?_ he’d said.

I thought I had. I mentally replay our conversation two weeks earlier and discover that I did not, in fact, apologise.

“I’m sorry,” I say at once. _Was that too fast, too automatic, not sincere enough?_ Perhaps, but I don’t want to forget to say it this time. He’s probably just here to pick up more of his things, which will make me crazy because it would mean that he doesn’t intend to move back— and then I will be too upset to say it right. So that he will not think I’m just reciting what he wishes to hear, I add: “I wish I could have told you.”

“You _wish_ you could have?” He frowns, but sits down in his old chair. “If you wanted to, you could have. You didn’t want me to know.”

I sense where this conversation is going — I will explain it all again, how I couldn’t let Moriarty kill him, how John is not a very good actor and I needed him to really believe I was dead, how Moriarty’s people were still a threat —and I see a train wreck up ahead. I need to head it off.

“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I do love you, John.”

I could say, _I was wrong,_ but I wasn’t. And he would know I didn’t mean it. It wouldn’t be right.

“Do you?” he asks. “That’s not what people do when they _love_ someone. When they _marry_ someone. You don’t trick your spouse, the person who loves you and agreed to spend his life with you, into thinking that you’re dead, then return and expect to resume where you left off.”

When he puts it like that, I can begin to see his point. But in truth, I simply don’t know what else I could have done. Given a choice between John’s death and anything else, I will take _anything else_ every single time.

But he surprises me. “Why do you love me, Sherlock?”

My mouth opens; nothing comes out. My brain is stuck in a loop: _if I say X, what will happen? Maybe I should say Y… But then he might think Z… does he expect me to say Q?_

“Stop thinking,” he says. “Just say what you feel.”

“You’re perfect,” is what pops out of my mouth.

“I’m not,” he says.

“You’re perfect for me,” I amend. “You keep me right. You look out for me, prevent me from saying the wrong thing or looking like an arse. You make me a better person.”

He sits quietly, hands folded, eyes regarding me impassively. “And that’s what you want? A minder who keeps you out of trouble?”

“No, you’re much more to me than that.” I think about how much I lust for his compact body, how sex with him was such a revelation, how I love sleeping curled around him, waking up next to him. I think about all his different smiles— the one that crinkles his eyes so much that they close, the one that’s accompanied by a giggle, the one that means I’m an endearing idiot… “John, I’m not very good at describing feelings, as you know. And I have little experience with relationships. I love you. I just don’t know how to prove it.”

He narrows his eyes, leans forward in his chair. “I just need to be sure. I can’t go into this again, thinking we’re on the same page, and find out that we’re not even reading the same book. I need to trust you, and I’m just not sure I do. And we can’t have a relationship without trust.”

“Please, John.” I’m already trying to come up with a plan to make him trust me. The problem with trust is that you never really know whether you can trust someone, until you suddenly know you can’t.

I fear that John has already reached that point with me. “Please, give me a chance, John.”

His cobalt eyes gaze at me evenly, weighing my words. “This is important, Sherlock. I cannot afford to fuck this up.”

Then he rises, leans towards me, and kisses me on the mouth. It isn’t passionate, but it’s more than a chaste peck. It’s tender, fond, wistful.

He puts on his jacket and heads for the door.

“Will you come back?” I’m not sure I want to hear the answer if it’s _no._ But he could have said _no_ already if that’s what he meant. So there is hope, maybe, that he hasn’t made up his mind. That wasn’t a goodbye kiss, maybe, but a test — of me, or him, or just… _I need to know if this is the last time I’ll see you._

He doesn’t answer right away. He’s halfway out the door, one foot still in the flat. _Undecided_. “I think so,” he says at last.

 _I’ll see him again_ , I tell myself. _Give him time_.


	2. A Brilliant Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where it all began: Sherlock considers the history and progress of their relationship.

I’ve known John Watson for four years. Two of those years don’t count, I suppose, because I was pretending to be dead. But in the two years before that, I thought I knew him well.

During all the years before I met him, I never expected to get married, or even have a significant relationship with anyone. The need for a flatmate had forced me to think about what sort of person I could live with. It had to be someone with no annoying habits, but also someone who would tolerate my own annoying habits. That presented few possibilities. People with annoying habits are often the very same people who object to the annoying habits of others.

I might have picked a female, but women in general annoy me. They have high voices and think small animals are cute and always want to talk about _feelings._ And they are romantic. The worse I behave, the more they seem to think they can fix me. Women attracted to men like me are evolutionary dead-ends. They have neither the common sense nor self-preservation instincts to continue the species.

When Mike Stamford shows up with a small, limping army doctor in tow, I assess his compatibility. The man indicates that his nerves are shot and he doesn’t like rows, which means that he will be quiet. If he wants to talk about things, he already has a therapist for that. I don’t yet know about his habits, but he seems tolerant enough to put up with mine.

On the other hand, becoming a doctor requires some rigorous education, so he might feel the need to argue with me, just to prove himself _not an idiot_. My most recent ex-flatmate was a semi-educated idiot who felt his calling in life was to prove that everyone else is an idiot. Because I was often hanging about the flat, he used to practice on me. We didn’t get along.

I consider the man standing before me, who may be an idiot. I could try to refrain from calling him an idiot, I suppose. If I ignore him, he might realise that arguing with Sherlock Holmes is a futile endeavour.

On the plus side, I consider that it will be handy to have someone around who knows how to handle small medical emergencies. I admit that I am not good at stitching myself up.

On the minus side, he will most likely not tolerate some of my chemical habits.

But he most definitely will not express an interest in having sex with me. He all but proclaims his heterosexuality to Mrs Hudson as he is considering the flat. _Of course we’ll be needing two bedrooms._ Excellent.

Having only a half-pension due to his brief service, he needs a flat, nearly anywhere being preferable to his awful bedsit. I have a very nice flat, but need someone to split the rent with me. Living in central London is expensive. We could, potentially, solve one another’s problems.

All known factors weighed, John Watson is a safe choice. With my blessing, he moves his few possessions into the flat.

My reasoning is not flawed.

He is intelligent, not brilliant. I can almost hear him thinking at times, the mental cogs squeaking like the wheel in a hamster cage. He does not make leaps of logic, but when handed facts, he generally plods towards the correct conclusions.

He is handsome, but not gorgeous. Women flirt with him and he flirts back. _Boring_. Men flirt with him, and he pretends not to notice. S _omewhat interesting_.

A small, ordinary man. An army doctor, invalided out after being wounded. A person with few friends, no family outside of an alcoholic brother (who later turns out to be a sister) who’s just gotten a divorce. Unlikely to be a distraction.

He has PTSD and trust issues, is depressed about the injury that makes his hand shake and ended his surgery career, gave him a psychosomatic limp and an interesting scar. I haven’t seen the scar yet, but I suspect it will be the most interesting thing about my new flatmate.

I do not have high expectations. If dogs could pay rent, I might have selected a dog as a flatmate.

Instead, I have John Watson, who is a bit dog-like. He sniffs suspiciously around new situations, but is generally friendly. He gets feisty sometimes and sort of bristles. I notice him growling at bigger dogs. He is territorial, and paces about the flat picking up after me. He sleeps a lot, often on the couch or in his chair. I wonder if I can get him to bite Mycroft.

Unlike a dog, he asks questions. But he learns to be obedient. When I tell him to sit, he does. When I shush him, he shushes. He is a man of habit, and he is loyal. He makes the tea, pays the bills, and limps after me into the dead of night on the flimsiest of pretexts. He seems happy.

He begins to accompany me on cases. The people I work with at Scotland Yard find me difficult, which is mostly because they are all idiots. But they are going to love my flatmate. I see the possibilities at once; he will deal with people, leaving me to solve cases. He will be my idiot-whisperer.

We’re standing in a room in a vacant building where a woman lies dead. Lestrade is looking at John, who is examining the body, obviously worried because John is an _Unauthorised Person_.

Anderson’s wife made him sleep on the sofa last night, and he is trying to reassert his manhood by insulting me. Sally Donovan is looking like she just sucked a lemon, which perhaps she did. Or something else.

“You’re an idiot,” I explain to Anderson.

Before the idiot can open his mouth, Donovan jumps in. “And you’re a psycho.”

“Get your facts straight,” I reply. “I’m not a psychopath.”

“Right,” she says. She and Anderson snigger. “If it walks like a duck—”

“Notwithstanding your informed opinion of ducks,” I retort, “you obviously know little about psychopaths. As anyone can see, I am a sociopath, not a psychopath. The difference being—”

“Whatever,” she says. She and Anderson withdraw, but continue sniggering behind their hands.

I see John Watson looking at me. Inside that funny little hamster brain, the wheels are turning.

When I was five, a doctor told my mother that I had sociopathic tendencies. He said this, I think, because I did not like other children and, since I was a child myself, that was unexpected. I refused to play with my classmates and hit them when they touched me.

The doctor asked me if I understood that hitting children was not nice. I confirmed that I did understand that.

He asked me if I was sorry that I had hit those children. I said I wasn’t. He wondered if I could imagine how it felt to be hit by another child. I did not have to imagine this, because I’d often been hit by other children. I didn’t say this, though. I told him, _Other children are stupid. They deserve to be hit._

He asked me if being kept in from recess had taught me a lesson. _Yes_ , I said. _I now understand that recess is a waste of time._ I much preferred sitting in the principal’s office, reading a book.

Then he talked to my mother for a long time while I read a book.

My mother cried at the diagnosis. She had high hopes because I had learned to read early and liked to solve maths problems instead of playing action men. I found her reaction to the word _sociopath_ interesting, and looked up the term in the set of encyclopaedias my parents had bought me when I refused to read books about hungry caterpillars and cats wearing hats.

 _Lack of conscience._ Since conscience strikes me as more of a religious concept, meant to lead to confession and absolution (both of which are unnecessary for rational people), I decided that being a sociopath simply meant being a rational person. I embraced the label.

“Why do you put up with insults from those two?”

I look at John.Apparently the hamsters have reached a conclusion.

I shrug. “Why should I care what they think?”

“It's disrespectful, the way they treat you. And they're wrong.”

“Not really.” I smile.

“You think you're a sociopath?” He laughs. “Should I be worried? Are you plotting to murder me in my sleep?”

I smile because I’m not actually plotting to do that. Killing him would be counter-productive. He is my favourite flatmate so far, and I doubt whether I will find anyone else willing to put up with me. Not to mention the fact that I would be the obvious suspect if he were murdered. I don’t actually care what he thinks, any more than I care what Anderson and Donovan think, but it is not strategic to let him suspect that I am plotting to murder him. That will make him nervous and fidgety around me, and I can’t stand fidgety people. Instead, I think about interesting ways to kill Anderson. Because I'm a sociopath, I sometimes think about things like that.

While Lestrade and his minions are being dense, I go look for the pink case.

“Why did you do that?”

Hearing a voice, I open my eyes and see John. He is standing straight, hands on hips.I flip through my index of body posture. Decisive? Angry? Impatient?

“You're going to have to be more specific, John.”

Fortunately, John is his actual name. Often I make up names for people because the ridiculous names they use are wasting space in my Mind Palace. But John is the perfect name for my flatmate. The real world has for once agreed with the ideal. My last ex-flatmate had some ridiculous name that I deleted at once. I called him Steve. He used to argue with me about that.

“I mean,” John says slowly, rolling his eyes a bit (ah, _anger_ , then?), “Why did you invite me to the crime scene, then take off without telling me where you were going?”

“Because I did not require your skills any longer.”

The look on his face intensifies. _Really angry_.

“Your limp would have slowed me down,” I explain.

His face is doing something new. Maybe he is tired. Or bored.

I try again. “Why should I waste your time, when you no doubt have other things to do? Though what those other things might be, I cannot imagine.” He has nothing to do. He's a used-up ex-army doctor with a psychosomatic limp and PTSD. I don’t say this part.

“Oh.” He says this softly. He looks to the left, licks his lips and sniffs.

To distract him from his own petty emotions, I tell him about the pink case.

“Took me less than an hour to find the right skip,” I say modestly.

“Pink. You got all that because you realised the case would be pink?” He gives me what I think is an admiring look.

“Well, it had to be pink, obviously. She was wearing pink, head to toe.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” he mutters. _Yes, admiration._

“Because—” And now I have called my flatmate an idiot, even though I swore I wasn’t going to do that. He’s no more an idiot than any one else. I explain this to him. He appears to think this is an apology.

“We need to talk to the police,” he says.

“Four people are dead. No time.”

“Then why are you talking to me?”

“Mrs Hudson took my skull.”

He frowns again, most likely wondering why she would take my skull. “So, basically, I’m filling in for your skull?”

I stand and put on my coat. He is still trying to work out whether this is an insult or some kind of weird, back-handed compliment. “Coming?”

He follows me.

I don’t have any friends, but if I did, they would all be criminals. Angelo is such a person. I got him off a murder charge by getting him arrested for a burglary. It was an irrefutable alibi, and he was properly grateful to me. He now has a restaurant, _Angelo’s._ I did not say that he was imaginative.

Angelo’s is an Italian restaurant. There are several things I like about it. First, the food is decent. Second, the food is always free for Sherlock Holmes. Third, the table at the front window is an excellent vantage point from which to stake out a potential murderer. I am not sure if the free food rule applies to guests of Sherlock Holmes, but I bring John with me. 

“Whatever you want— on the house!” Angelo hugs me. He is a very feeling person, for a criminal. He looks at John. “Anything on the menu! For you and your date!”

John frowns. “I’m not his date.”

“I’ll get a candle,” says Angelo. “More romantic.”

“Not his date,” John mutters. His face looks a bit indignant.

 _Bad liar_ , I decide. The ones who protest too much, who become indignant, are always liars. I am a good liar because I don’t have an indignant face.

John begins (quite awkwardly) trying to deduce my inclinations, asking if I am involved with anyone. Once women are eliminated from the equation ( _not my area_ ), he seems almost hopeful that I am available ( _Fine. Okay. So, unattached, like me. Good._ )

Definitely awkward. And a bit deceptive, coming from a man who has insisted he is only interested in women. Perhaps John Watson is a habitual liar. On the other hand, he cannot possibly be as good at lying as I am.

“I consider myself married to my work,” I say, “and while I’m flattered by your interest, I’m really not looking for any kind of…”

“No,” he says. “I wasn’t asking— It’s all fine.”

 _Definitely asking_ , I think.

At this point, I notice the taxi, and we take off.

By the time we get back to Baker Street, I have cured his psychosomatic limp.

I am trying to deduce the importance of _Rachel._ Not _Rache—… not_ revenge.

“We have to talk to Rachel,” I say, pacing. “You must bring her in.”

“Dead,” says Lestrade.

“Excellent!” Finally, we’re getting somewhere. “There must be a connection.”

Lestrade shakes his head. Whether he is disappointed that she’s dead, or sees no connection, I can’t tell. “Rachel was Jennifer Wilson’s stillborn daughter, fourteen years ago.”

“But that was ages ago!” I point out. “ Why would she still be upset?”

John is frowning. There is a small crease between his eyebrows.

He and Lestrade exchange a look. Anderson rolls his eyes. “Psycho…”

I’m still trying to deduce John. “Not good?”

“Bit not good, yeah.” He doesn’t look happy. Evading my eyes, looking down. Something else. Looks up, raises eyebrows at me. Encouraging, perhaps.

Then it hits me. He has seen my problem— inappropriate behaviour in a social situation requiring empathy— and is trying to assist. This is something unprecedented. John Watson might be more useful than I originally predicted.

As soon as I figure out who killed the cabby, I understand the brilliant choice I have made in a flatmate. Not only is he quiet, loyal, admiring, and not an idiot, he is also protective. And a crack shot.

He has met Mycroft and survived. Though he hasn’t yet bitten my brother, he has growled at him, and I am hopeful.

My flatmate has a blog. All evidence to the contrary, he thinks he can write. _A Study in Pink._ Well.

“Do you like it?” he asks.

“I suppose you meant _spectacularly ignorant_ in a nice way. None of those things matter to me. The solar system— why should I waste space on my hard drive remembering things like that?”

The truth is, I gave up on the solar system when they demoted Pluto. It didn’t seem right. It was still the same orbiting hunk of rock it had been for ever so long, since before humans even saw it and deduced that it was an orbiting rock, but now someone had decided that it wasn’t big enough to qualify. _Dwarf planet. Planetoid._ It was like revoking a Nobel Prize.

“The solar system!” He seems distressed. I’m guessing that he was not a fan of Pluto, was happy to see it kicked out of the fraternity of planets.

Some time later, I notice that John is talking. Generally, I just hum or look up and smile at him, but he has apparently asked me a question.

“Do you just carry on talking to me when I'm away?”

I look up from what I'm doing and consider John’s expression. I decide I'm going to have to start a shelf somewhere in my Mind Palace where I can store his facial expressions and gestures. It will give me a place to keep the meanings, once I decode them. This will save a lot of time.

He tends to agree to things more readily when he’s away, though he’s more useful when he’s around.

John grumbles sometimes, but he does not make loud objections. And he makes passable tea. I use him to remember mundane things, like when we need to stop at Tesco to buy milk or what people’s names are or where I put my phone. Actually, I remember where my phone is. I just don’t feel like getting up.

I am beginning to realise that I don’t mind having him around. I used to talk to the skull when I needed a sounding board. It’s not talkative, but it always has a pleasant smile. John is pleasant too, but something about him helps me think. Though that _something_ is elusive now, I will eventually deduce it.

We share a bathroom, which sometimes leads to our crossing paths in minor states of undress. For me, that means a dressing gown. For John, it sometimes means just a towel wrapped around his middle. Or a pair of red pants. This is a bit disturbing. Not only does my flatmate have a nice, tight arse and an apparently impressive member, he also flaunts that very interesting scar. I long to touch it, but restrain myself.

But there are the women. John seems to have no trouble finding females willing to tolerate his presence. This is another gift that he possesses; not only is he tolerant, he is tolerable. He goes on _dates_ with the females who tolerate him, buys them dinner as an investment towards eventual coitus. None of them tolerate him for long, which is good because each one of them is annoying in her own way. _The one with the freckles. The one with the nose. The one with the laugh._

Because I am not invited on any dates, I cannot help him with his inability to find females who will tolerate him long enough to achieve coitus. His tolerability apparently has a brief shelf-life. The mystery intrigues me. I have lived with him for weeks, and still find him not merely tolerable, but attractive.

The next time he takes a female to Angelo’s, I pose as a waiter and take notes. Because I am wearing a tuxedo and he is focused on maximising her interest, he does not notice me. I listen to their inane conversation, refilling their water glasses at frequent intervals and reciting the chef’s specials. He always orders lasagna.

He flirts, she flirts back. They talk about movies, telly, and other boring things. She giggles, he wags his eyebrows and gives her a flirty smile. She asks about his living situation.

He smiles. “I have a flatmate…”

It is all clear within five minutes. He talks about me, the _madman_ he lives with, and at ninety seconds, her eyes begin to glaze over. Oblivious, he relates our most recent case. The date ends with a polite hug, a chaste kiss, and no promises.

Obviously, John is infatuated with me.

I am no longer concerned about these females. Well, it does rankle me, just a bit, that he has such bad taste in sexual partners, but he also has bad taste in clothing. Neither of these things reflect badly on me. Obviously, the females are a cover for his attraction to me. He doesn’t want me to know because he fears rejection. So he shows his colourful pants, struts his scar and his tight arse in front of me because he hopes I will make the first move. I chuckle at his transparency. I stare at his impressive member.

Sociopaths like sex as much as other people. We just don’t like _people_ all that much. People are an unnecessary complication in getting sex. My feelings about my flatmate have become somewhat complicated.

I know from experience (well, not first-hand experience, but I have observed— and how much experience does one actually need to draw a conclusion about something so elementary?) — at any rate, my observation has taught me that love is at best a distraction, at worst a calamity. I will not make the mistake that so many others have made.

I want to have sex with him; the logical solution is to seduce him.


	3. Contrary to All Reason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More backstory: Courting John Watson

I make a study of courtship conventions and plan a series of experiments, matching them to what I know of John’s character.

I must not be too direct, I decide. He is a proud person, and may not enjoy being physically assaulted. And he has army training in how not to be assaulted. Assaulting him cannot be Plan A. Or even Plan B.

He is still trying to maintain the fiction that he is attracted to women, so I must avoid offending him. I might try a logical approach, explaining that on a continuum of sexuality, he is probably closer to the middle than either end. A surprisingly large number of men who do not consider themselves gay have had sex with another man. I could quote statistics, but John is a man who rebels against odds. He may be a medical man, a scientist of sorts, but he will never tell a patient that they have a better than fifty percent chance of surviving and think that is good news. He finds statistics _clinical,_ which simply means that they lack feelings. Which, of course, they do.

He will have to initiate, I think. I need only put him in situations where he will begin to acknowledge his attraction to me.

Going out to dinner and movies seem to be preferred activities, as evidenced by his own strategies. I begin taking him out on dates. He does not know these are dates, but eventually he will catch on. By then, I hope, he will be on board.

We date for several weeks, usually with candles and wine. We go to movies where people shoot at each other and blow things up. We eat lasagna and share tiramisu. Sometimes we go for walks to nowhere, saying nothing. These things are meant to be romantic. It becomes something of a routine, less romantic than I intended, but we have at least broken all records for dates between John Watson and any female. At eight dates, I declare myself the undisputed winner.

But he still hasn’t noticed that we are dating. This was to be expected, I realise. He sees, but does not observe. We are in the same space, doing the same things, seeing entirely different things. I see see candles and wine and think _romance_ (if even a sociopath can see it, it’s obvious); he thinks it’s awesome that he has a flatmate who likes the same movies. He may be attracted to me, but he doesn’t connect this with the idea of romance.

My next step is clear: Be less subtle: seduce him. Since he is already attracted to me, this will not be difficult. I need only give him permission to respond.

He struts his red pants. I flaunt my black silk drawers. I begin forgetting my dressing gown in the bedroom, come into the kitchen wearing just a towel. He notices. He stops looking for females.

The tipping point comes after a chase. The suspect fired shots at us. John avoided being hit (probably because he is small and no longer limps), but one of the bullets went through my coat, just grazing my leg. John fired at the man, taking him down without killing him. He is excellent marksman who could easily have hit any of the major arteries, causing the suspect to bleed out slowly enough for me to tell him what a worthless piece of shite he is for firing at Watson. But John probably does not consider the man worth all the paperwork that Lestrade would require if he actually killed him. Scotland Yard catches up with us and hauls him away.

John seems angry, or possibly sad. He’s looked at my leg and seen that it’s nothing serious and promises to put something on it when we are home. He doesn’t speak in the cab, but when he reaches over and takes my hand, I know that we are getting close.

Once home, I remove my trousers and sit on the toilet lid in my black silk drawers. He cleans the graze, treats it with antibiotic ointment and fastens gauze over it. Then he sits on the floor, his hand on my knee, stares at the gauze and says nothing.

“John, it’s all right,” I tell him. “I’m fine.”

He closes his eyes. “You could have been killed. It wouldn’t have been worth it. Not for a scumbag like that.”

He is weighing odds, deciding how likely it is that this will happen again, and again. Statistics are making him sad. Eventually, I might be seriously injured— a bullet to the gut, the head, the chest. Even if the odds are only one percent, he will not see this as acceptable. I have always understood that what I do is dangerous. He understands, too, but can’t help himself. He loves the danger of the chase as much as I do. It’s statistics he hates.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“I can’t—” He suppresses a sob. Covering his face with his hands, he whispers. “I can’t lose you.”

“John, you won’t—”

“I love you.” He looks up at me. John is a brave man. He has just admitted something that frightens him. Standing, he pulls me to my feet and puts his arms around me. “I can’t lose you.”

I tilt his face up to see his expression. He puts a hand behind my head, pulls me in. The kiss is deep, full of unrealised longing.

Our first night as lovers is gentle. He is a bit restrained, afraid of hurting my leg. I let him lead, and he takes us all the way.

After that, things are different between us. He doesn’t say _I love you_ often, and I don’t say it at all, but we act like lovers. There are little touches, looks of understanding. His smiles are different; he looks into my eyes instead of evading. He kisses me goodbye when he leaves for his job at the surgery, and when he comes back, dinner is often postponed.

We don’t attempt to define what this is _,_ and he makes no demands.

I don’t know if this is love. Though I am not averse to lying, I dislike discussing feelings. John is honest, but not a precise communicator; he has trouble putting feelings into words. We are both silent on the subject.

And we don’t tell anyone. Mycroft deduces, of course, and warns me that it will not end well. I don’t care about endings now. Predicting the future is pointless; all we can really be sure of is now. _Now_ is what I’ve wanted.

We continue in this way for some months. He sleeps in my bedroom, which frees up the other bedroom for use as a lab. I move out his bed, bring in lab tables, set up my equipment, and buy a small refrigerator for body parts. I am content. He notices that the body parts have disappeared from the kitchen. He is content.

_Do I love him?_

There are many ways one could define _love_. At a minimum, it ought to mean that you don’t want someone dead, that you prefer them alive and making tea for you and picking up the milk. I am sure that people end up in relationships for reasons like these, and it certainly explains the _opposites attract_ notion; people choose people who fill in their gaps, people who are good at the things that they themselves cannot do well.

For example:

I am good at reasoning; John is a bit of an idiot. Do I need an idiot? Perhaps I do. Even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day. John’s record is nearly this good. Even when he’s wrong, he often makes useful remarks. And he admires me for being right.

John excels at dealing with people and their feelings; I am a sociopath. Obviously, I need a handler, and he seems to embrace this role. Lestrade calls him a saint; Donovan and Anderson call him the _sociopath-whisperer._

I frequently make messes; John likes tidying up. Again, he doesn’t mind. With him, it’s an instinctive need for order.

John needs to feel useful; I am good at finding things for him to do. When I met him, he was a broken-down army doctor. Now he is side-kick to the world’s only consulting detective.

I delete unimportant details from my Mind Palace; John stores all sorts of rubbish in his funny hamster brain. Occasionally, some of his rubbish may be useful. Perfect example: he can always find where I’ve left my phone, even without putting my number into his own phone and waiting to hear it to ring. He knows all about bullets and wounds and other things that make people die. He doesn’t have to ask me what I want when he offers to go get takeaway. He remembers how I like my tea, and which biscuits he should buy at Tesco.

Sex with him is brilliant. But sex is not love.

There must be more to our relationship than a yin-yang co-dependency. I just don’t know what it is.

After John, decked out in an explosive vest, has threatened to blow himself up in order to kill Moriarty, I realise that I have made a critical error. Seeing a red dot from a rifle scope dancing on his chest makes me realise that I must, at all costs, _keep John Watson alive_. These words flash in my Mind Palace like a neon sign with lots of arrows. _Keep John Watson alive_. Life without him has become unthinkable, impossible.

When he grabs Moriarty and tells me to run, I think, _I love you._

In the end, nobody is blown up. John Watson may be a killer, but he isn’t a show-off. Moriarty goes away, so we head back to the flat. We are on a bit of a high because we have looked our enemy in the face without flinching, and he has retreated. And we are not dead. Although I am certain that Moriarty will be back, I am considering another problem.

We lie in bed sweaty and sated, neither of us asleep. He has his head on my chest and I am stroking his back. And I am thinking.

Other people don’t seem to find friendship perplexing. And they never confuse it with love. Lestrade and John, for example, are friends. He likes John and has always provided something I can’t — pub nights, sports talk, movies. They’re mates, John has always said. _Bros._ This is short for _brothers_ and indicates a non-sexual alpha-male friendship _._ My only reference for what it’s like to have a brother is Mycroft, and I would not wish that on anyone. Still, John and Greg don’t seem to mind calling themselves _bros_. They don’t have candlelight dinners or go for long walks. They have never been confused about whether they ought to have sex with each other. (That’s _no._ )

Which is different from what John and I have. We were never _bros_. We were friends, perhaps, though we never talked sports or had pub nights. Really, we don’t talk all that much. I can spend hours in a room with him without uttering a word. And sometimes I talk to him when he’s not there. He has a gift of silence, which makes him an invaluable companion.

We have not defined what we are. It seems unnecessary. We are lovers, I suppose, not merely sex partners. Sex can be obtained from a stranger; this is something more. It involves my entire being.

_I love you._

It turns out that I have said this aloud.

I feel him smile. “I love you, too.”

My words may have been a reaction to almost losing him, spoken in an unguarded moment, but they may also be true. He has become indispensable to me. I call him a dimwit, but he is actually a conductor of light, channeling my genius in ways I don’t even understand.

He said he couldn’t lose me; this meant that he loves me. Now I know that I cannot afford to lose him, either. Do I love him? It’s possible. No, it’s _probable_.

I no longer am content with _now._ I want _forever._

The epiphany hits. I will ask him to marry me.

When he has left for work, I look at the traditional wedding vows, as found in the Book of Common Prayer.

 _The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God…_ (Since I do not believe in God, I make a mental note that the rest of this is suspect) _…_

 _…for their mutual joy…_ (agreed; having sex makes us joyful) _…_

 _…for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity…_ (John handles the finances; I’m not sure how much prosperity we have, but it is sufficient to afford takeaway and an occasional nice dinner with wine and candles. Really, that’s enough) …

… _and adversity…_ (John thrives under adversity; he grew up in adverse circumstances, invaded Afghanistan, and is a complete danger junkie) _…_

 _…and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord…_ (whether it’s the will of a non-existent God or not, I do not foresee children) _…_

_…Therefore marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God._

Which is exactly why I am deliberating about this, even though God has nothing to do with me. I may have had an epiphany, but marriage is not something one does on a lark.

This is just the preamble. The actual vows are as follows:

_Will you, [name], have this man to be your husband; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?_

Forsaking will not happen, as I have no intention of entering into another relationship. And we are already living together without a covenant; what I want are legal documents that mean he can’t change his mind without more paperwork. We both hate paperwork, and will go to lengths to avoid it. As for the sickness and health part, one of my strongest reasons for considering marriage is that the law does not recognise the rights of flatmates or lovers when it comes to medical care. If John were ever hurt, I would not be allowed in to harass his doctors and nurses and make sure they don’t forget that he is absolutely essential to me. And if I were the one who was hurt, I would want him at my side, making sure that whatever they are doing to me won’t damage my brain.

It makes perfect sense to marry John Watson.

Naturally, I can’t approach it in this way.

I wait a few days. We are obviously compatible; our tenure as flatmates has proven this. We’ve known each other for nearly a year at this point, which ought to be sufficient to determine attraction and affection. I wait until we’ve just finished Thai takeaway and _The Bourne Ultimatum_ to launch my campaign.

“John.” I notice he’s beginning to tidy the room and will want to go to bed. This conversation should probably not happen in bed, as it involves legal things, which are inclined to depress the libido. I hand him my mug. “I have a proposal to make which I believe will benefit us both.”

He carries our dishes into the kitchen and begins running the water. I follow.

“Proposal?” He laughs. “Are you saying you want to get married?”

This tells me that he has considered the matter as well and is not opposed to the idea.

“Indeed,” I say. “I have given the matter much thought. Though in general I consider matrimony an outdated institution (since it is no longer based on the financial dependency of women on men) and a risky proposition with few benefits (considering that more than fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce),” I pause, realising that have erred in mentioning statistics to John Watson; percentages will make his hamster wheel start turning. “Perhaps we should go to bed before continuing,” I conclude.

A line appears between his eyebrows, a sign that he is perplexed. “Are you really asking me to marry you?”

I forge ahead. “I am asking you, John Watson, to be my husband. I am a fool, perhaps, but I can deny my feelings in this matter no longer.”

I try to deduce his face. It isn’t anger. Or remorse. It most closely resembles his _What The Fuck_ face. He tries to change his expression to something else, but apparently can’t figure out what kind of face my proposal deserves. The hamsters have fallen off the wheel.

I wait. If he is an idiot, I may have to backtrack and try a different argument.

He gathers his wits, herds the hamsters back onto their wheel. “So. What you're saying is, contrary to all reason and against your better judgement, you love me. You want to marry me.”

I am relieved; he is not an idiot. “Yes, exactly.”

“And how did you reach this conclusion?”

“Science, John,” I say with pride. “In my youth, I made a study of physical attraction. Theoretically, I mean, not with actual, physical… people. I determined that it was mostly chemical, brought on by proximity, shared experience, an instinctive need to propagate the species, and the desire for protective alliances. That is, there are certain advantages in being closely bound to another. The fact that we humans continue seeking alliances, in spite of the fact that many prove less than ideal, must mean that this urge is innate and very powerful. Indeed, my own parents were quite incompatible, and yet they have stayed together long after they ceased to be physically attractive or capable of producing offspring. I am physically attracted to you, we have shared many experiences, and having a protective alliance will benefit us both. These are my reasons.” I rest my case on Science.

“Amazing.” His expression shifts to something more like admiration. Or bewilderment. These expressions are rather difficult to distinguish from one another. “I guess nature’s taken a wrong turn with us, since physical attraction isn’t likely to lead to any propagation.”

I offer rebuttal. “Perhaps. I do not claim to understand what nature’s ultimate objective is. But I do recognise the value of having a partner, whether that partnership produces offspring or not.”

John is grinning. “Now you're just flirting with me.”

“Am I?” I smile, recognising that he is not repulsed by the idea. “Can I assume that you reciprocate my feelings?”

“Sherlock.” He sighs and looks at me. A fond look, I think. He places his hands on my shoulders. Small, sturdy doctor’s hands. “Can we take this a bit slower? And maybe less… scientifically?”

It takes me another two weeks to convince him. He realises that it is sensible to have a legal document that allows us into hospital rooms and makes it easier to file our taxes. His hesitation seems to hover around other issues.

“My parents were divorced when I was ten,” he tells me.

“That must have been hard for you,” I say. “But we need not consider the feelings of hypothetical, statistically improbable children.”

“I don’t intend to divorce you— ever,” he responds. “I consider this a very serious commitment.”

“As do I.”

“I won’t tolerate drugs,” he says. “No cocaine, no heroin. I know you have used in the past. No more. Not even cigarettes. If it’s not prescribed by a real doctor, you’re not taking it.”

“I promise. No drugs.”

“Do you mean that?” He looks intently at me, as if I have made a joke that needs explaining. “Marriage is forever, Sherlock. That’s what it means to me. Any problems, we face them together.”

“Agreed.” I get down on one knee, because that is the protocol for asking someone to marry you. “Will you marry me, John?”

There are tears in his eyes, but he is smiling. “I will.”

Neither of us wants a big wedding. In fact, we just go to the register’s office and sign papers. Because we are entering a civil partnership (which is all that same-sex partners can ask for in 2011), we do not have to say vows, but we do. We hold hands and smile at one another.

We swear to love and honour, defend and protect one another, in sickness and in health, to forsake all others and be faithful to one another, till death do us part.

I insisted on the death wording; it seems less euphemistic than _as long as we both shall live._ Our marriage must not be founded on euphemism.

He cannot leave me now, not without signing more documents. All I have to do is keep him alive.

The registrar reads the agreement and asks us to sign, and two clerks serve as witnesses. We exchange rings. One of the clerks takes our picture. Then we go to Angelo’s and celebrate. When we arrive home, Mycroft has had a case of wine delivered.

When we’ve been married for six months, Moriarty returns.


	4. The Scientific Method

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More angst. And Science.

He used to go to my grave. I saw him once, before I had to leave England. I heard what he said that time. Mycroft says he visited the cemetery on my birthday each year, and on our anniversary. I don’t know what he said on those occasions, or even why he felt a need to talk to a gravestone. When I say this to Mycroft, he reminds me that funerals and cemeteries and monuments are for the living, and that ceremonies give people a way to deal with their feelings. This is the kind of thing people always say about funerals, which is why people should _never_ plan their own funeral, because it will _always_ be too long. Mine was an efficient twenty-minute affair, planned by Mycroft.

People don’t talk to me about John, but I can see that they are judging me. They don’t know why I did it, or how much it cost me. I know that it was worth it (because John is not dead), but the price keeps adding up.

We're finishing up at a crime scene. Donovan has run out of cutting insults and Anderson is quiet, which suggests that his wife has discovered their affair and put him in the doghouse. I wait and follow Lestrade, fumbling for the questions I should ask. There's something I need to know, but I'm not seeing what it is— or even able to frame a question that will lead me there. A mystery without clues.

“About John,” I begin, then stop, words failing me. _Why_ or _how_ might be better questions than _what_ , but I need something concrete to start with. _What is wrong, what can I do, what does he want from me…_

“Go see him,” Lestrade suggests.

“I don’t know where he lives.” It’s awful to admit this, that I have no idea what John’s life is now. I haven’t been by the surgery where he works because there might be a row (still angry) and that would be embarrassing and unforgivable. I don’t call; I text. He ignores my texts.

Lestrade raises his eyebrows. “You really need to talk to him.”

“He doesn’t trust me. I don’t know how to fix it.”

Lestrade shrugs and makes a sort of bemused face. I wish he would just say what he’s thinking instead of assuming body language is enough.

“What can I do?” I ask.

“Stop seeing him as a problem you need to fix. He’s got plenty of his own problems. Maybe you can help him with some of those.”

“What problems?” PTSD is likely; he’s had it before, mostly recovered, and probably was triggered again by my apparent suicide. Nightmares, for sure. _Think: how can I help with this?_ “Is he seeing a counsellor?”

Lestrade nods. “But he needs a friend.”

“He has you,” I point out. “I’m his husband, not his friend.”

From the look on his face, I deduce that this is news to him. “Sherlock,” he says. “I didn’t know.”

“He’s not supposed to leave,” I say. “He promised. _Till death_.”

“And what did you expect? He thought you were dead. Jesus, Sherlock. You talked him into marrying you?”

In hindsight, I realise that I could have taken better care of him. If I look at it objectively, I have been a terrible husband. I leave messes all over the flat, and I don’t listen to him when he tells long, boring stories, and I run off without telling him where I’m going. I jumped off the roof without telling him I wasn’t really dead. _And saved his life._ (Though I can see how that would make me _look like_ a terrible husband, I did it for him. _And saved his life_.)

Lestrade is still looking at me, a question mark on his face. He is waiting for me to deduce something, I think.

Suddenly, I do. “He’s seeing someone.” This is more than I think I can stand. “He’s cheating on me.”

Lestrade rolls his eyes. “He thought you were dead! We had a funeral, with flowers and people wearing black. There were speeches, and… and… condolences. You have a headstone that says _Sherlock Holmes_. What was he supposed to think?”

He’s right, but it doesn’t sit well with me. My eyes start to itch. I feel like I’m about to go up in flames. I begin imagining ugly scenarios. John in bed with a woman. John on his knees, pleasuring another man. John saying _I love you_ to anyone else. “Is it a woman or a man?”

He lays a hand on my shoulder. “Sherlock, he’s not seeing anyone,” Lestrade says. “No women, no men.”

I wipe away the moisture that seems to have gathered in my eyes. I’m a sociopath. I don’t cry. “Then why won’t he — Does he hate me for what I did?”

“He doesn’t hate you. He never hated you. He was angry, but he’s forgiven you, I think.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I say. This is emotional, and emotions are no help. It’s like putting out a fire with flames. My brain cannot solve this. I don’t even know where to begin. Maybe I’m crying, just a bit. “I don’t know why he won’t talk to me.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll have a word with him.”

He doesn’t come. I wait several days, trying to figure out what to say to him.

I want to tell him that I’m sorry, that I understand better why he’s angry. I want to tell him that I’ve been a terrible husband. _Even though I saved his life._

No, I can’t say that part.

Molly sees my distress. She was in on the fake suicide, and has since told me that she wishes she had never agreed to do it. Keeping the secret from John was just too painful, she says.

“What would you do,” I ask her, “if someone was threatening your husband? Assuming that you were married, of course. Your hypothetical husband.”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m not sure that _faking my own death_ would have been my first idea, though.”

I open my mouth, prepared to explain how the eight other ideas I had were all flawed, but she is still speaking. _Patience,_ I hear John’s voice remind me. I listen.

“You can’t expect to come back and find everything just the same as when you left. If John is different, maybe it’s because of what you did.”

“I did it for him,” I say. “And he married me. He wasn’t supposed to leave.”

“ _You_ left.” She arches an eyebrow. _Disapproval._

“And I came back. He _wanted_ me back. I heard him say so. I expected him to be surprised, but I thought he’d be happy. He isn’t a bit happy that I came back.”

She chews her lip. _Sad_. “Well, maybe you have to accept that he isn’t ready. It’s not like you were on holiday and he knew you were alive somewhere. You were dead, and he didn’t ever expect to see you again. It was really hard for him, Sherlock.”

“Hard how?”

She looks at me, frowning, takes a deep breath and lets it out in a sigh. “Has anyone you loved ever died?”

This is an easy one— easy because I’ve never loved anyone. Until John. “No.”

Some expression takes shape on her face. She is about as easy to read as John, but as a woman, she feels things differently. Not anger, I think. She is trying to be patient, the way one is with small children who haven’t yet learned not to grab toys away from other children. She wants to explain it to me, and for that she has to control her own emotions.

“All right,” she says slowly. “You are sad and upset because John won’t talk to you. Now, imagine that you can’t ever talk to him again, or see him, or be with him. You have memories, but the only tangible thing left of him is a gravestone. Every morning you wake up and remember that he’s dead. Little things during the day remind you of him, and you have to keep remembering that he’s gone. Every time you remember, you grieve again. Try to imagine this, Sherlock. Do you understand?” Clearly, she is imagining this; her eyes are full of tears.

I try to imagine, too. I feel like I’m going to be sick. “I think so.” My throat is tight, my voice barely a whisper. I don’t like thinking about this. _John is not dead,_ I remind myself. _I saved him by jumping._

She hands me a tissue because my allergies are acting up. “It might take a while before he can talk to you.”

I can’t accept it. I want things back the way they were. I want him at my side, gun in pocket, running after criminals. I want him laughing at crap telly while I dissect the characters. I want him in my bed, kissing my clavicle, licking my nipples, playing with my— Well, it’s been a while since I’ve had sex. It’s been on my mind. Just being honest.

“I want him back,” I say, wiping my nose.

“Then you have to be patient.And remember that things are bound to be different. All relationships change over time. Even if you hadn’t pretended to kill yourself and be dead for two years, things would have changed between you.”

“I don’t like change,” I say. “It’s not fair for him to change while I wasn’t here to get used to it.”

She pats my hand. “Give it time.”

Apparently, I’m not a very patient person. I snap at Mrs Hudson, then apologise. She makes me scones. Lestrade calls to ask how I’m doing, and I am rude. I text him later: _sorry._ He doesn’t respond.

My brother comes to see me. He is the most patient man that every existed, with long games in play that will not resolve for decades. And he loves telling people how he predicted every mistake they ever made. I tell him to go away.

He sits in John’s chair (another little reminder that he’s not here) and looks around as if a cup of tea will magically appear.

“I suppose it’s no use telling you I was right,” he begins.

I don’t even want to know which of my many mistakes he is referring to. “What do you care?”

“You’re my brother. I care that you’re unhappy, even if it is the result of your own faulty thinking.”

I grit my teeth and go start the tea. This gives me time to think of ways to make him go away. The water boils, I put the tea bags in the mugs and pour the water over them. I watch it steep, knowing that it will not be as good as John Watson’s tea. I’m not sure why it tastes different, but it always does.

“I know you have advice,” I say, setting his tea on the side table, “so why don’t we just get that part over with. Then you can proceed with whatever questions, insults, or demands you may have.”

He blows gently on his tea. I see him grimace slightly at the chip on the lip of the mug, but he says nothing about my slovenly housekeeping. “Have you any biscuits?”

“No. I ate them all for supper last night.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you’re eating something. Mrs Hudson is concerned about you.”

This explains his visit.

“Fine!” I snap. “Why don’t you just point out all my _faulty thinking_? Tell me again why sentiment is always on the _losing side_. Explain why a _sociopath_ has no business getting into a _romantic relationship_.” I say all of these things with _italics_ , because that is the way he always talks to me. Italics for idiots.

He sets his tea down. His eyebrows are coming together in a little furrow of curiosity. He purses his lips and regards me. Were he not my brother, I would describe his look as _fond._

He smiles, but it is not his usual superior smile. _Fond_ , then. “And why, dear brother, do you think you are a sociopath?”

I feel as if I have just stuck my head out of the rabbit hole. Or perhaps I’ve tumbled down into it. I’m dizzy. It’s like getting off one of those high-speed rides that swing you in circles and suddenly feeling the earth moving under your feet.

I open and close my mouth a few times before words come out. “Because-- they said so!”

He snorts. “Ridiculous. On what authority did _they_ decide that you were?”

“Mummy believed it! _Lack of conscience!_ She cried!” I narrow my eyes at him. “On whose authority can you say that I’m not?”

He gives a long-suffering sigh. “You were a difficult child, to be sure. The school psychologist suggested that you were not socialising well with other children. Mummy pointed out that you were far more intelligent than other children. There was no diagnosis. Your teacher, an ignorant woman, had used the words _sociopathic tendencies._ Mummy cried because she realised that this woman had no understanding of how to work with a boy like you, and that for months the other children had been bullying you, while your teacher blamed you for your own victimisation.”

I stare blankly at him.

“You do recall that our parents pulled you out of that school, don’t you? They sent you to a school for gifted children.”

I did remember going to another school after that. But I had already embraced my sociopathy by then. It had become my alter-ego, the fact that explained why other people found me difficult, why they laughed at me, why they avoided me. It was my armour against hurt, my weapon against bullies. I didn’t care about other people because they didn’t care about me.

“Do you love John?” he asks.

“I lack empathy,” I reply. “I’m manipulative.”

“You married him. Why did you do that if you didn’t care about him?”

It’s true that I promised to love John without being very sure whether I did love him. Maybe I thought I could fake it. I was defective, I thought, and decided that wanting to keep him could pass for love. When I said, _I love you,_ I meant, _don’t leave me._

Mycroft is still regarding me with a look that means I am an idiot but he is too nice to insult me now that my husband has left me. “Do you understand why John is angry? Do you understand why he used to go to your grave?”

“Because he loves me, and he thought I was dead.”

I remember Molly’s words to me. I try to imagine visiting John’s grave, what I would say to him. I visualise him falling from the roof at Bart’s and dying like that, to save me. I feel sick, thinking of him dying, dead on the sidewalk. I see the blood, his broken body… I see him in the morgue, inside a zippered bag. I see him in a coffin, being lowered into the earth. It gives me an eerie shiver, a bottomless hollow in my gut to imagine myself standing before a gravestone inscribed _John Hamish Watson._ Standing there, I would wonder what I could have done to stop him. I would be angry at him for leaving me. I would never stop missing him.

“Sherlock,” my brother says quietly. “You’re crying.”

 _Guilt, anger, grief._ That’s what these feelings are. That's what John is feeling. This is where I must begin.

I don’t want to think about this new information, but I must. I should have known better than to trust evidence gathered by a five year old, even if that five year old was me.

The more often we tell ourselves a story, the more likely we are to change it. I have observed this with eye witnesses on many occasions. They don’t even realise they’re doing it. They tell their story to anyone who will listen. People’s reactions reinforce their memories. And every time they repeat the story, neurons connect to other neurons in the hippocampus, synapses are formed, and the memory becomes a bit more detailed. The brain will make up details to explain what it doesn’t understand, even if the details don’t make sense. This is called _confabulation_.

I was in the room when the psychologist talked to Mummy, but now I have to concede that I may not be recalling that meeting accurately. I was reading a book about bees while they were talking, as I recall. I was reading my book and listening to their talk, two competing linguistic tasks which brains cannot do simultaneously. Instead, one’s attention switches back and forth, missing bits of each task’s focus. I kept re-reading passages of the book; the conversation, however, I could not rewind. I remember words they said ( _sociopathic tendencies_ ), the expression on my mother’s face.When I arrived home, looked up the word I didn’t understand, _sociopathic_ , and began to apply that description to myself. I convinced myself, and it made sense. The world provided evidence, which I incorporated into my memory. It all made sense. And it gave me an excuse for so many things that were difficult. I made up a story, then believed it.

_Am I a sociopath?_

First, it must be acknowledged that psychology is not a hard science, and diagnostic criteria for psychological disorders are often vague. There is no definitive test for sociopathy, not in the same way that an article of clothing can be tested for the presence of blood or DNA. At the age of five, I did not fully understand this.

Second, I have to admit that I did my research backwards, a mistake I would never make now. When I investigate a crime, I rarely rely on eyewitness testimony, for reasons I have already noted. I begin with evidence that cannot be argued with— footprints, fingerprints, blood tests, chemical analysis. There is always an element of creativity in piecing evidence together, but if I reject evidence, it cannot be simply because it is inconvenient. Facts cannot be ignored. Every bit of evidence must be objectively analysed and explained before a hypothesis can be accepted.

Children make terrible eye-witnesses. Even the smartest five year old’s brain is not developed enough to understand what an adult can understand. In the same year I decided that I was a sociopath, I first learned how babies are conceived. Somehow, that information organised itself into a story that involved shooting arrows into a woman’s belly and then hugging her so hard that a baby pops out through her belly button. New information gradually replaced that story, and I now understand where babies actually come from.

_Am I a sociopath?_

As a child, I cried when my dog died. Would a sociopath do that?

I missed my parents when they went abroad for several months, leaving me and Mycroft with our Uncle Rudy.

I felt gutted when I thought about John being dead.

Can a five year old even be considered a sociopath? All young children are irrational, selfish, and lacking in empathy. I was no different.

Inconclusive and conflicting evidence forces me to retract my initial hypothesis: I am not a sociopath.

_Do I love John?_

There is no diagnosis for love. There is no formula or checklist or litmus test. It is a concept, an abstraction. It is subjective. Science cannot prove that I love John; nor can it disprove my feelings. But I am a scientist. If John wants proof of my love, I don’t know how to provide that.

_Does John love me?_

He has not said it for a long time, but he is not a man who easily grapples with his feelings. His anger at me does not negate his love, but things change, as Molly said. He needs a friend, as Lestrade told me. That means talking— and listening. Observing him— and not triumphantly announcing my deductions. I cannot make my love dependent on his. Love is not a piece of paper, a contract, or a bargain. Love must be unconditional. I love him and must continue to love him, no matter what happens.

Finally he comes, three weeks later, in the evening. I hear his feet trudging up the stairs (always know his footsteps) and listen as he pauses at the door before knocking: _tired, leg hurting, hesitant…_

I wait for his knock before I open. I am nervous, eager — but afraid.

He looks terrible. _Sleeping badly, not eating enough. Hair grown out, not combed._ He’s not working, or his hair would be trimmed and combed. But he’s also not sleeping. Not sick; his eyes get red when he’s been sick. Not eating means he’s worried about something. Money? Perhaps. Why isn’t he working?

“Hi,” he says. He puts on his soldier smile. Maybe he won’t tell me what’s wrong. He doesn’t trust me. And if he does tell me, will I know what to say? I could Google it right now, while we’re awkwardly standing here, but I don’t know the question. I don’t know how to fix this, how to show him I love him.

“Are you all right?” I ask, motioning him inside. Obviously, he’s not, but this is the kind of question people ask to show they care.

He nods and drops into his chair. “Fine.”

“You’re not fine,” I say. “You’re tired and haven’t been eating. You look wrecked.” Too much deducing. _What would a good husband do?_ “I’ll make tea.”

He’s asleep when I return with two mugs and a half-empty box of biscuits. I mentally calculate how many nights without sleep would make him fall asleep so quickly. John needs a lot more sleep than I do, so _two_ , I think. As I set down his mug, he startles awake.

“Have some tea.” The most obvious thing to say. “You’ll feel better.” An unnecessary and unsubstantiated hypothesis. _You might feel better_ would have been more accurate. _Tea generally makes one feel better_ would have been safer, but again, unnecessary. John knows about tea. He used to make it for me all the time. He never announced it or made predictions about it. He just set it down in front of me. Obvious.

“Thanks.” He lifts his mug and takes a sip.

“What’s going on?” I ask. This question could elicit any number of responses, from the mundane ( _boring stories from the clinic_ ) to the positively frightening ( _I’ve decided never to see you again_ ). I hope for something in between— informative, but not terminal.

He takes a biscuit and nibbles on it, then has another swallow of tea. I am watching his every movement, trying to deduce the problem so I can figure out what to say before everything falls apart. It’s driving me to the edge of my patience. If he says _fine_ again, I’m going to — well, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have no options at this point. It's all fine.

“What were you doing?” he asks. “All that time— two years, almost.”

I am happy for the opening. I know what to say about this. “There are two reasons I had to fake my death,” I begin. “First, because snipers were going to kill you. Lestrade and Mrs Hudson also had snipers, and though I do care about them, you’re my husband. In our vows, I promised to protect you, not specifically from snipers, but I think it falls under the _protect and defend_ clause.”

He huffs impatiently, opens his mouth to reply.

I raise my hand, carry on with my answer. “The second reason will answer your question. Once I was dead, it would be easier to go under cover and dismantle Moriarty’s network. It took longer than I planned, but it was too good an opportunity to waste. Though he himself was dead, there were others who might have threatened you. I was taking no chances.”

He frowns. Not buying this. “I mean, what were you _doing_? Sitting in hotel rooms, doing internet stuff, or running around, shooting at people?”

“A bit of both.”

“Mycroft said you were captured and tortured. He had to go under cover to get you out.”

I should have realised that Mycroft would tell him this. “Yes. In Serbia.”

His face softens a bit. “Are you hurt?”

“I wouldn’t call it torture. It lasted a few days, and then Mycroft showed up. I’m mostly healed. I had medical care when I returned.”

He nods. I cannot tell from his expression what he is thinking.

“Was it worth it?”

I am not sure how to answer. If I say _yes,_ he will think that I didn’t mind hurting him to chase down a bunch of international hoodlums. If I say _no,_ he will think that I wasted two years for nothing. Either way, I look like a callous, egotistical idiot. Though I may not be an actual sociopath, this doesn’t leave me looking like a hero.

“I’m sorry,” I say. There may be words that will erase the look on his face— hurt, grief, anger— but I don’t know what they are.

He stands. “I need to leave.”

“Will you come back?”

He doesn’t answer. The door clicks shut behind him.

After he leaves, I lie on the sofa, wondering if I will ever see him again. I think about drugs, how easy it would be to get some, how maybe I could _almost_ overdose, just enough to send him into doctor mode and realise how much he doesn’t want me to die again.

I don’t do this. When I asked him to marry me, I promised. No more drugs. I won’t give him another reason to leave.

Mrs Hudson finds me still lying on the sofa in the morning. She shakes her head and clicks her tongue, but she gathers up the mugs of cold tea, makes a fresh pot. She has never believed that tea bags are the beginning of a good cuppa. She goes through the entire ceremony, warming the pot, measuring the tea, timing how long it steeps. It’s very good tea, but I’m convinced that John possesses some kind of proprietary tea magic; even when it’s PG Tips bags in a cracked mug, his tea tastes better.

“You should eat something,” she says. Usually she is loquacious, chattering away about all manner of irrelevancies. Today she is reserved.

“Not hungry.”

She drops two slices of bread in the toaster, takes the apricot jam out of the refrigerator. “It’s not good for you, all this mooning about.”

Of course it’s not good. That’s the point, in its entirety. I deserve nothing good.

She brings the tea and toast on a tray, sets it on the table, and sits on the sofa. “Eat.”

Mrs Hudson often appears to be a ditzy old lady who calls everyone _dearie_ , but this is not who she really is. She is a woman who lived with a gangster, was able to escape and see him sent to the electric chair (with my assistance). She is a mother who lost her child, a woman who has worked her entire life without complaining and has managed her life better than people with more resources. She can put on a mask, but she never lies to me, and she always says things I need to hear.

I sit up and dutifully nibble on the toast. “He’s not coming back,” I tell her.

“Did he say that?”

“He didn’t have to.”

“He’s had a rough time of it, you know. Your brother kept up the rent, but he had to leave. He said everything reminded him of you.”

“You didn’t lease the flat out.”

“Mycroft said not to, not yet, and kept making payments, so I kept it off the market.” She shrugs. “He never said why. Now it makes sense, but at the time, I wondered.”

“I understand why John is mad,” I say. “But I came back. I did it for him. When we got married, I promised to protect him. I didn’t have any choice; I couldn’t let him be killed.”

She cocks her head. “You did it for him, but also for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, your brother could have managed it so you didn’t have to single-handedly take on the all the villains. You wanted to be the hero.”

I consider this. I do want to be John’s hero, but it appears that my actions have hurt him. I try to put myself back into my mind at the moment I fell from the roof. They say that people who jump from tall things, like bridges, and survive, often regret jumping. The minute their feet leave the earth, they realise what death means. That moment, when I pitched off the roof, I was obviously not going to die because Mycroft and I had planned it down to the smallest detail. So I did not realise what my death might mean. But I was thinking of John. I was thinking of him alone, grieving. There was a second when I might have regretted it, but by then I was bracing for impact. And I knew I would survive and come back to him.

It is a fact that I did fall. It is also a fact that I didn’t tell John for two years. Any of the other things that I might have done instead are not facts. Hypotheticals don’t change what happened.

“I don’t know what to do,” I say. “Tell me how to get him back.”

She gives me a smile that already makes me more hopeful. “Well, you haven’t really lost him. Not the way he thought he’d lost you. He’s alive, and he still loves you.”

“Why won’t he come back, then?”

“He will.” She pats my knee and stands up. “He loves you.”

He doesn’t knock when he comes back two days later. I hear his key in the lock, and there he is, standing in the sitting room. His face is gloomy, reserved. He has brought a suitcase.

“You’re back.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “Good deduction.”

“But you’re still angry.” Again, obvious.

He can’t look at me. His sigh is tired, resigned. “Yes.”

He carries his suitcase up the stairs, to his old room. There is silence for a moment. He’s forgotten about the lab. “What did you do with my bed?”

“You don’t have a bed. _We_ have a bed, where we sleep, together.”

“Fine. I can sleep on the sofa.”

“Why did you come back, if you don’t intend to live as my husband?”

“Take off your shirt,” he says.

I am so surprised that I laugh out loud. “What? You’re not going to romance me first?”

He sighs and rolls his eyes. “I want to see your injuries.”

“Then you have to take off your shirt as well.”

This request is not well received. “ _I_ haven’t been tortured.”

“You’re thinner than I’ve ever seen you, even when you first came back from Afghanistan. You haven’t been taking care of yourself. I want see the damage.”

He shrugs and pulls off his jumper, unbuttons his shirt.

“You’re thin, too,” he points out as I remove my shirt.

“I can see your ribs,” I counter.

He examines my back. I feel his fingers trace the scars. I remember, before the scars, when he used to touch me, running his fingers down my back, tightening his grip as he—

“You were beaten, with a cane— no, a leather whip. How long ago?”

“Six weeks before you saw me. Three months ago.”

“It looks fairly healed.”

“As I said. You’ve lost one stone four.”

He counters. “You’ve lost at least a stone as well.”

We glare at one another for a moment. I think about showing him the scars on my legs as well, just so I can get him to remove his trousers, but that seems a bit self-serving.

I begin buttoning up my shirt. “You haven’t been going to work.”

He pulls his jumper over his head and goes into the kitchen. I hear him filling the kettle with water and opening the cabinet.

“Oi!” he says. “Why’d you put my mug on the highest shelf?”

“It was in the way.” I don’t say that I couldn’t bear seeing it every morning. I reach it down, set it on the worktop.

He chews his lip, refusing to look at me. “Would you like a cup as well?”

“That would be lovely. Thank you.”

We stand there. Watching the kettle come to a boil takes forever. “Have a seat,” he says. “I’ll bring yours to you.”

“No problem. I can just as easily bring yours to you.”

“No need. I can do it.”

“It’s no trouble. I would _gladly_ bring you your tea,” I say. “In fact, would _die_ for you.”

He huffs and rolls his eyes. “Sherlock.”

“Are you ever going to talk to me again?” I try not to let resentment creep into my voice.

“We’ve done nothing but talk since I got here.” The water boils. I put teabags in the mugs; he pours the water. We return to the sitting room.

He stops and stares. “My chair? Was that in the way, too?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, sits on the sofa.

“I didn’t think you were coming back,” I say quietly. “You didn’t answer when I asked, so I thought…”

A fleeting grimace passes over his face. “And yet, here I am.”

“How many?” I ask.

He blows on his tea. “How many what?”

“Women. Men. Sexual partners.” _How many times did you cheat on me?_

“That woman you saw me with at the restaurant? She was the first. And I never had sex with her. It was just a date.” He sips his tea. “Actually only about a quarter of a date. Some people at work decided I should be moving on and set me up with her. You saw how that turned out. How about you?”

“Zero. I was rather busy.” _Saving your life._ ”Why haven’t you been going to work?”

I know the look I’m seeing now. His cheeks flush. He’s embarrassed.

“I’ve been sacked.”

“Sarah fired you?”

“No. She sold the surgery to a firm of doctors a few months ago.”

“Why did they let you go?”

“I was a rubbish employee.”

“No. You’re an excellent doctor, John.”

He smiles grimly. “Rubbish employee. Sarah put up with me because she felt sorry for me. She let me take days off and go home early, come in late. The new owners were not so lenient. I used up all my sick time and continued to miss about a day a week. There were days…” He sighs. “I got better, a bit, but after you returned, all my PTSD came back. I went in to work intoxicated a couple times. Patients complained. They found a bottle in my desk, and so…” He shrugs.

“How many weeks have you been unemployed?”

“A month.”

He has returned because he can’t afford to live anywhere else, now that his month-to-month lease has run out. As soon as he finds a new job, he will leave.

He sleeps on the sofa. I lie in our bed, hoping he won’t find another job.


	5. Quod Erat Demonstrandum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If this be error and upon me prov’d, I never writ, nor no man every lov’d.

Now that John has returned, I have a chance to change his mind, to convince him that I love him. This opportunity will expire, however, when he finds a job and draws his first pay check. At the current unemployment rate of 5.2 percent, the average inhabitant of Britain remains jobless for just thirty-seven days. Since he has already been unemployed for a month, this gives me approximately a week to win him back.

This is not like when I convinced him to marry me. Science can only do so much to solve this. Love is a human construct. How do any of us know that other people love us? How can we be sure of our own feelings? These are questions for philosophy, not science. And yet, this is what I need to understand.

We do not talk, except transactionally.

“Do you need the loo before I step into the shower?” I ask. This requires a simple _yes_ or _no._

“Would you like tea?”

“Are you done with that cup?”

“Did you pay the electric?”

“Have you seen my phone?”

“Is Thai takeaway all right?”

 _Yes, no_.

I try to anticipate his needs. I do the shopping, but because I have never paid attention to the shopping before, I buy the wrong tea, the wrong yogurt, the wrong shampoo. While he is out looking for a job, I put them away next to the items which have almost been used up, and I see my mistake.

I have been on my own for two years. This feels lonelier than anything I experienced while I was gone.

On day seven, John has a job interview. He doesn’t tell me this, but have deduced it from the way he is dressed when he leaves the flat: no jumper; tie and jacket. I decide to cook dinner for him, hoping that he will be impressed with my domestic skills. More likely, he will be shocked because he has no idea that I am aware of what the stove is for. I think of all his favourite foods. Fish and chips, ham and eggs, sandwiches, lasagna, curry.

Because my cooking skills are admittedly weak, I get Angelo to make me a pan of his famous lasagna; to accompany it, I buy a bag of salad and a bottle of passable Pinot Noir.

By the time I hear his feet on the stairs (no one else’s feet sound quite the same), the flat smells wonderful. John will be impressed. If he’s not, I can blame it on Angelo.

When he walks into the flat, I read his body language and attempt to deduce the outcome of his interview. He has always had an open, easily deduced face, but has been much more reserved since he moved back. His expression is shuttered, wary. He knows that I can read him, but he doesn’t want to be read. Because it will annoy him, I do not ask how it went, even though I am almost ready to collapse under the stress of anticipation.

It has been raining all day, and he is damp. I debate whether tea or wine would be a better solution for dampness. He sits in his chair, which I have restored to its former spot opposite mine.

 _Weary or unhappy?_ I bring him a glass of the wine. He nods, takes it without looking at me.

I pour myself a glass, sit opposite him. When I can no longer stand the silence, I ask. “Did they turn you down?”

He looks startled for a moment, then gives me a small smile. “No.”

I go into full-on deduction mode. For weeks, he has seemed not moody, not angry, but reserved. He hasn’t wanted to be here and is only waiting for an excuse to move out. Now he has a job, and that ought to make him happy, but it hasn’t. Resignation sits on his features, in his posture. My deductive powers fail me.

“When will you be moving out?” I ask.

He frowns. “Why do you think I’m moving out?”

“You have a job, which means you can afford your own flat.”

He takes a swallow of wine. “Not leaving.”

“You’re obviously unhappy here,” I point out. “Why would you stay?”

He closes his eyes and leans his head back. “Because I promised.”

I understand. John is a man of his word. He said _till death do us part,_ and I’m not dead. Yet.

“You don’t have to.”

“I know. When is dinner?”

We eat in silence. He thanks me for cooking, begins washing the dishes. I protest that he looks tired and should relax.

“I’m fine. You cooked, so I wash up.”

To be perfectly honest, I should tell him I did not cook. Lying is a habit with me, one I should break now.

“Actually… Angelo cooked,” I say.

He might make a joke now, offer to go wash Angelo’s dishes, or say that he’d been amazed at my previously unseen and largely imaginary cooking skills…

“It’s fine,” he says, and continues washing up.

When he is done with the dishes, he lies on the sofa and reads. I retreat to the bedroom, close the door, and stretch out on the bed. I must figure this out. He is came back because he feels obligated. He swore that he would not divorce me, and he won’t. But we cannot exist in this limbo. This isn’t a marriage. While many marriages survive for years without love, I can only see that killing us both. He will grow to hate me (if he doesn’t already) and will stubbornly stick it out because that’s who he is. His father left him; he will not leave me. I left him, but he will stay.

I know he doesn’t trust me, but why live with a man he doesn’t trust? Just because he promised— well, people break promises all the time. He should not feel himself a failure just because his idiot husband forgot to mention he wasn’t dead. This, apparently, is a huge breach of faith, if I go by the reactions of all the people who know me. The results of my informal survey: five people out of six think John is right to be angry. Mycroft refused to give an opinion.

Can faith in a person be restored? Because I do not trust many people, this is hard for me to answer. 

I am not sure how much longer we can go on like this. John says he will stay, but he may change his mind. He has an income now, or will shortly, when he gets his first pay check. I put my deductive skills to work because that is all I know how to do.

John’s limp has returned. This is my first observation. Because it is a psychosomatic limp, it is a perfect barometer of his mental state. Around the flat, he limps. He takes the stairs slowly and unevenly. When he sits, he props his leg up. But he does not carry his cane. I wonder if a new cane would be a thoughtful gift, but decide that he does not like to be reminded of his disability. Instead, I must cure him, as I did once before.

I follow him after he leaves the flat for work the next day. I watch as he limps to the corner and waits for the light. As he waits, I notice his stance. He has forgotten, places his weight equally on both legs. As the light changes, he steps off the kerb and continues walking without a limp.

Conclusion: I am making him limp. Thinking about me, being in my presence, causes him distress.

That evening I try to be more solicitous of him. I go out and bring back his favourite takeaway and clean up afterwards. I offer him his slippers, and a pillow for his leg. Without being asked, I pick up the telly remote and select a movie he will like, one with lots of shooting. He falls asleep before the movie ends. I gradually lower the volume so he won’t startle at sudden silence. When he seems peaceful, I make sure he’s not in an awkward position that will hurt his neck, and then slink off to bed.

My next investigation involves his favourite pub, where he often meets people on Friday evenings. Since the next day is Friday, I stake out a corner table from which to observe. I have to disguise myself as an elderly priest; even though John is generally oblivious to his surroundings, he sometimes surprises me.

He comes in a bit later than normal, accompanied by people I don’t know. I assume they are his new co-workers. He is not limping. I hear their conversation: patients and ailments. He offers to buy the first round of drinks; the others protest. He is, apparently, their new best friend, and they want to buy his drinks. They love Dr Watson. He tells a funny story— one that does not feature me as its main character, or even a minor character. They all laugh uproariously.

Conclusion: John used to tell stories about me to women he was trying to have sex with because he could not stop being amazed at me. Now he doesn’t even tell his coworkers stories that include me as a minor character. I am no longer amazing, it seems.

When he turns and frowns at me, I also conclude that he is not as oblivious as I thought. I pretend to read my Bible.

Deciding that we need to spend more time doing things other than food, telly, and sitting around, I invite him on a case when Lestrade calls on Saturday. There is no better way that I can amaze him than by solving an interesting case.

“It looks like a seven or an eight,” I tell him. “Two dead bodies, no weapon.”

He does not look up from his laptop. “No, thanks.”

I go by myself.

“Where’s John?” Lestrade asks when I duck under the tape. “Anderson says it was poison.”

“Anderson is an idiot,” I say, snapping on my latex gloves. It only takes me two minutes to realise that each person has succumbed to an allergic reaction. “Note the swollen lips,” I say. “And the faint rash on the chest of each victim.”

As Anderson and I stand over the bodies, debating whether the cause of death was poison or allergy, I see John enter the crime scene and approach Lestrade. They talk for a few minutes, John nodding his head, and then together walk towards the bodies.

Without a word, John kneels, and with gloved hands, examines each victim. He opens their mouths, peers into their eyes, and looks at the rash. “Poison,” he says, pointing to one victim.

Anderson gives a triumphant smirk. “Told you.”

“Peanut allergy,” he says, pointing at the other victim.

I do not feel triumphant.

Conclusions: While I assumed that John was avoiding police work, it is _me_ he does not wish to work with. He is more than happy to come if Lestrade asks him.

I continue to be considerate because I don’t know what else to do. I bring him more pillows, buy more takeaway, keep a constant mug of tea at his elbow, find a James Bond movie marathon. He tells me that I’m freaking him out.

“This is just weird,” he says. “You need to stop trying to be so nice.”

I almost blurt out that I love him, but decide that it will sound manipulative. “You deserve to be treated nicely,” I say instead. I don’t know what to do with the pillows I am holding, so I pretend I was just rearranging things on the couch. “I like doing nice things for you.”

“You never acted like this before.”

“I didn’t realise how much you meant to me.”

This silences him.

My deductions do not move things forward.

Christmas arrives. We are, as every year, invited to spend it at my family home in Sussex. I have forgotten to ask Mycroft what John did while I was gone, whether he went to Sussex or stayed in London.

I mention my parents’ invitation.

“I have to go see Harry,” he says. He is typing something on his laptop.

“How is she?”

He shrugs. “Drinking again.”

Harry and I have never gotten along well. She thinks I’m a sociopath. Well, I thought so too, so I can’t fault her for that, but now I’m actually trying not to act like one. John hates staying with her; they fight. I wonder if I should offer to go along. It might give him a different target for his anger.

“Do you want me to accompany you?” I ask.

He looks at me as if I’ve just told him I’m joining a doomsday cult. “No, I don’t. I wouldn’t put you through that.”

“You put up with my family,” I point out.

He shrugs again and returns to his typing. “Your parents are not alcoholics. I actually like them. And Mycroft is tolerable, in small doses.”

“Well, I just wanted to offer.”

We spend Christmas apart. Though I am not sentimental about holidays and birthdays, it feels wrong. I find myself wishing he were here with me, so we could be bored together. We could make fun of Mycroft. We could get cold and warm each other up.

John once commented on how normal my parents are. Given how abnormal Mycroft and I are, he might suspect that we were adopted.

My parents, of course, knew that I was not dead for two years. This is probably a good reason that John has opted out of Christmas with the Holmes family. He already knows that there were others besides Molly who knew, and this will not sit well with him. No snipers had rifles aimed at my parents, though.

Mycroft is talking on the phone, probably with Anthea. The governments of the world do not stop having wars and revolutions just because it’s Christmas. My father is asleep with the newspaper across his face. He is the last subscriber on the street, so the delivery people have to make a special trip every day, all the way up our long drive, just so he will have something to block out sound and light while he takes his nap.

I watch my mother roll out pie crusts for the mince pies she always makes. Nobody actually likes mince pie, but it is traditional to have it. To skip the mince pies would mean that some hallowed piece of our lives has altered, and who knows what would happen then. My mother believes that my father likes it. He sees no point in telling her that he would prefer apple.

She knows my trouble, knows better than to ask me about it. I have come to appreciate her more these days. I think of John, whose parents were _difficult_ , and how he considers my parents _lovely_ by comparison. John lost his parents early, his father when he was twelve, and his mother when he was at uni. I used to think John was lucky because his parents didn’t have a chance to become more difficult, judging his romantic and reproductive choices. He admits that his father would have had a problem with me, that he would have disowned him if he knew his son was gay. I’m not sure why a parent would think that withdrawing support from a gay offspring would force them to rethink their biology, resulting in better choices. I’m glad my own parents were sensible about my orientation. They consider John perfect.

I think about that long-ago conversation in the school psychologist’s office. Mummy was also an eye-witness, probably a more reliable one than five-year-old me. I should test some of my conclusions.

“Do you think I’m a sociopath?”

She startles, frowns at me. “Why do you ask?” She continues making the dough flat. Her circle is lopsided. With the rolling pin, she pushes perpendicular to the length.

“I just want your opinion.”

She pauses in her dough-pushing. “What evidence are you considering?”

For this, I present a list. “I’m manipulative, insensitive, impulsive, self-centred, irresponsible, shallow, entitled…” The next thing on my list is _unable to love anyone._ I don’t say this because she has burst out laughing before I can say it.

I don’t ask why she’s laughing. She will explain.

“Sociopaths are also _charming_ ,” she says, smiling. She flips the dough over and pushes it a few times.

“You don’t find me charming?”

“I do,” she says. She leans over and plants a floury kiss on my cheek. “But mothers are invariably biased when it comes to their own children.”

“Some people think I’m a sociopath.”

“Sociopaths may be difficult people, but not all difficult people are sociopaths.”

“Why did that psychologist say I was?”

“Because he was man with a degree and an inflated sense of his own intelligence. He was a _school_ psychologist, not a real one. He was trained to diagnose learning handicaps. I think they receive better training these days.” She places the pie dish over the dough, gauging whether more rolling is necessary.

“So, there was nothing wrong with me?”

“You were an extremely intelligent little boy who could not relate to his average-to-dull peers. They picked on you. You hit back in the only way you knew how.” She sighs. “That school didn’t know what to do with you. We sent you to Layton after that. They tested you more thoroughly.”

“What did their tests find?”

She lifts the lop-sided circle of dough into the pie dish and begins gently pushing it into place. “I’m not going to tell you your I.Q. because those numbers are meaningless. I will say that they had never had a student quite so gifted. They found some tendencies towards the autism spectrum, but not enough to give you a label. Layton did not like labels. Such a lovely school. We still send them a donation each year.” Taking a knife, she trims off the excess crust.

“Why did you never tell me this?”

“What would be the purpose of telling you?” She begins folding over and crimping the edge of the crust, dampening her fingers at intervals as she goes around the perimeter of the dish. “You were smart, and you learned how to adapt. You observed people, gauging their reactions and interpreting how they felt. You developed ways to deal with over-stimulation. I know you’ve self-medicated, which was also a strategy, though not a good one, but you’ve also overcome that and learned better strategies.”

“But I’m not a good person. I’m callous, ego-centric—”

“So am I, my dear.” She looks up from her crust, which now is mathematically perfect. “I was a prodigy who found other children dull. As I grew, I learned that most women are silly and shallow. I wanted nothing to do with them. All the men I met were egoists, but at least they paid attention to things that were more important. I knew I was smart, and didn’t let them treat me condescendingly. The first man I found tolerable, I married.”

“Tolerable? You don’t love Dad?”

She begins spooning the mince mixture into the crust. “Love is not a simple equation, Sherlock. I do love your father— not because he met certain criteria or because I reached a point where I understood my own feelings perfectly. I chose to love him, even when he was less tolerable, or even downright intolerable. I wasn’t sure if I was _in love_ , but I decided that I loved him, and I promised to continue choosing him. He did the same. I am certain he would not describe our courtship in quite the same way, but he reached the same conclusion, that he loved me and wanted to spend his life with me. Love is not so much an emotion as it is a decision. It’s something you do, not just something you feel. That’s why wedding vows list the things we promise to do, not just things we promise to feel.”

I think about this. For my entire life, I have believed my parents loved one another, even when they argued or rolled their eyes behind each other’s backs. My mother makes mince pies because she believes my father likes mince pie. My father eats her pie because she makes it.

I watch her lay strips of dough over the top of the pie, interweaving them. John doesn’t make pie. He’s an easily tolerated person, but there are things about him that sometimes irk me. He has a temper. He wears ugly jumpers. When he writes up my cases, he forgets all about the Science of Deduction and makes it into an adventure story.

All these things are his mince pie.

I let him write his blog stories and have learned not to critique them. Even when he tells people I deleted the solar system.

I buy him jumpers that match his eyes, even though I’d rather see him in something that shows off his tight arse. (In a well-tailored suit, he is walking sex, but he doesn’t like wearing suits.)

I try not to set off his temper, but that’s hard. When I do, I have learned to avoid throwing more fuel on his flames. Eventually he apologises, and I forgive him without making a fuss about it, and we move on. That’s what we do.

I have no conclusion. Instead, I _decide_ that I love John Watson. I vow to always choose him. What I feel for him is love, and I will do whatever that means.

I don’t know how to tell him this yet, but I will figure it out.

When I return from Sussex, it’s late. The windows of the flat are dark as the cab lets me off at 221B. I’m tired, but not ready for bed. John will probably stay at his sister’s over New Year’s because she’s likely to drink a lot then. I know he wants to help her, but he can’t do sobriety for her. Even so, he will try because she’s his sister.

To avoid waking Mrs Hudson, I take the stairs quietly, avoiding the squeaky steps. I have my key ready and open the door soundlessly, prop it so it doesn’t bang shut behind me. I didn’t used to think about inconveniencing other people; sociopaths don’t worry about about other people. Now that I’m not a sociopath, I will begin paying more attention to things like that.

The first thing I notice is John’s backpack by the door. I hear breathing, and I know that he is home early, asleep on the couch. He must have had a row with Harry, or maybe he just couldn’t stand being with her another day. She is a very high-maintenance person. An hour with her is enough for me. John is a saint to put up with her. He is also a saint to put up with me. That’s what Lestrade says.

Slipping off my shoes, I gently set my case down inside the door. I hang my coat up next to his and walk quietly into the sitting room.

He’s curled on his side, facing the back of the sofa, perfectly still except for the movement of his chest, and I lean over to see his face, wondering what he’s dreaming about.

Maybe he dreams about what his life might have been, if he’d met someone other than me. Maybe he sees that moment when I asked him to marry me and for a few months he believed that I loved him. Maybe he relives the day I fell off the roof and died while he watched, helpless to do anything. Maybe he sees a thousand other moments when he knew he’d made a mistake.

Love is a concept. You can’t prove you love somebody, and that’s the thing that is both problematic and wonderful about it. Scientifically, we can’t really prove anything. We can only make thousands of observations and draw a conclusion that explains them. We start with an hypothesis, end with a theory. It isn’t self-evident, so we have to observe and deduce, and modify our theory to fit the facts. We believe our theory, while knowing that it could fall apart at any moment.

I said I loved him, but I didn’t tell him I was dead. I was so sure of his love that I came back expecting nothing to have changed.

I said I wanted to marry him, and he said yes. Marriage was a solution. It made it harder for him to leave me.

I saw, but didn’t understand. I saw him loving me, deduced that he would be loyal. That appears to be true. He did not leave me; he went away for a while because I was dead, and came back to keep his promise. I saw him hurt, but assumed I could talk him out of his anger and grief. I took him for granted. I didn’t understand what I had.

His eyes are always so distant now, his face so resigned. He tenses when I stand too close, and avoids touching me. He is fulfilling his promise, but not with joy. I can’t look into those eyes and tell him what I want to say.

Maybe, though, I can say it while he’s asleep. Perhaps his dreaming mind will hear me and understand.

Silently, I move towards the sofa and carefully lower myself to the floor, kneeling beside him. I wait, monitoring his breathing. He sleeps on.

Ever so gently, I lay my hand on his head. I can feel him, warm, steady, gentle. He breaths and does not stir.

“I’m sorry.” My voice is barely a whisper, just a breath against his ear. “I do love you, John, but I can’t prove it. Maybe you don’t love me anymore. You’re here only because you promised. I don’t deserve you, really. I never treated you well. I let you think you didn’t matter.”

He sighs but does not speak. His body is relaxed, his breathing regular.

“But you do matter to me, John. You matter more than anyone.” And then I understand what I have to do. “I release you, John. You don’t have to stay with me. Your loyalty is precious to me, but I haven’t earned it. I love you, but I won’t make you stay if you don’t want me. I release you from your promise.”

Slowly, I get to my feet and move towards the door. My bag is still packed, and I will come back tomorrow, while he’s at work, to pick up whatever else I need. We can work out the details tomorrow, sign the paperwork. Now, though, I have to leave.

As I’m sliding my feet back into my shoes, I hear him stirring. Not wanting to have this out tonight, I hastily put my coat on.

“Sherlock?”

“Just leaving.”

He sits up, sleepy-eyed, and looks at me. “Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving. Go back to sleep, John.”

He stands unsteadily, rubbing his eyes. “Why are you leaving?”

“Just… I’m sorry.” I turn towards the door, still searching for my second shoe.

I hear feet pad across the floor. “Don’t go,” he says.

“You don’t have to do this any more,” I say. “I’ll sign the papers.”

“What papers?”

I turn and look at him. I’ve always found him irresistible, ugly jumpers or no. Sleepy, his hair mussed at all angles, pillow creases on his cheeks, his eyes puffy— I don’t have superhuman powers of resistance, which is what it would take now to turn and walk out the door.

He slips his arms around me and leans his head on my chest. “I’m sorry.”

“John.” I try to think of something else to say, but all I can do is hold him.

He yawns. “I came back to tell you.” Another yawn.

“Tell me what?”

“That I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not—”

“I am.” He looks up and gives me a small smile. “All these weeks, I’ve been waiting, thinking you would do something that would prove to me that I could trust you. And I realised that it wasn’t you who had to prove something. It was me. There isn’t any way to prove that love exists. It requires faith.”

“I do love you,” I say.

“I know. And you don’t have to prove it. We swore to be faithful, right? Faith is believing things you can’t prove. I believe you love me. I have faith in you.”

My eyes are tearing up. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Neither do I,” he says. “That’s love.”

For many weeks, I have been wanting to kiss him. Now, I’m suddenly shy. Fortunately, he is not. We stand at the door like that, making up for all the weeks and months of kisses we have missed. “Okay?” he whispers when we pause.

“More.” I am reduced to single syllables. “More. Bed. Now.”

Just as we turn towards the bedroom, we hear footsteps coming up the stairs. Mrs Hudson, holding a cricket bat, arrives on the landing and lets out a sigh of relief.

“You’re back early,” she says. “Both of you.” She takes in the two of us, in each other’s arms, and smiles. “Well, seeing as how you’re not burglars, I’m going back to bed.”

Later, we lie in our bed, too happy to sleep, too tired to talk.

“It was Harry, you know,” he says. “She made me see it.”

“Really. I had no idea she was an expert on marital relations.”

“Nor had I. She practically pushed me out the door. _You’ve got a husband,_ she said. _What the fuck are you doing here? Go home!_ I told her we were having some problems and she said I was a fucking fool not to be happy you were back. She even quoted Shakespeare.” He chuckles. “Well, she was pretty drunk, and couldn’t remember all the words. _Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove… It is a star to every wand’ring bark, whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken…”_

“Sonnet 116.”

“Yeah, we had to learn it by heart in year ten, I think. I remembered the rest once she got started: _Love's not Time's fool—”_

 _“—though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come,”_ I recite from memory. _“Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out, even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov’d, I never writ, nor no man every lov’d_.”

“Quod erat demonstrandum*,” he says.

Concluding a discussion about poetry with a mathematical phrase in Latin may not sound like a prelude to sex, but it is. We haven’t proved anything, and that in itself is the proof. If we could prove it, it might not be love. Like us, it’s a paradox, a true marriage of math and poetry, minds and bodies.

I could say more about that, but at the moment I’m wanted in bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *that which was to be demonstrated. Q.E.D. is usually placed at the end of a mathematical proof to indicate that the proof is complete.


End file.
